hashtag_alison 's review for:

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

2.0

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This book is supposed to be a retelling of Snow White, but as far as I could see the similarities begin and end at a stepmother being involved. This book tells the story of the three titular women, two of them telling the story in first person and the third only gaining voice through her sister’s word for word reproduction of her letters. It starts off vocally unengaging, with interesting story but a rather dry narrator, but at some point either the voice finds itself or the story more than picks up the slack because engaged I definitely became. I would categorize the book overall as mediocre despite that. Though I wanted to know what happened there were several times when a character’s motivation just completely eluded me, which shouldn’t happen in first person. And just as it all seemed to be / drawing together into a cohesive whole - the book ended! If it was supposed to be one of those where you get the most from the journey instead of the destination I missed it completely. The storytelling was too compelling and the characters a bit hit-and-miss for it to work. Seems like it should have been the other way around.

All in all, I wasn’t impressed. I may revisit far in the future if I get curious enough to see if I missed something that made that all make sense, but like far in the future, when I’ve forgotten how lacklustre the experience was overall.